Roblox and the Remnants of the Metaverse

During the lockdown years, the metaverse was presented as the next big digital frontier. It promised virtual worlds where people could work, shop, or socialize with three-dimensional avatars and their own economies.

Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia invested billions to lead a revolution that seemed inevitable. However, three years later, that dream has been reduced to residual projects. Among them, Roblox remains the only real success story, while global attention has shifted toward artificial intelligence.

The rise of an overstretched idea

Between 2020 and 2022, the pandemic and lockdowns fueled interest in digital environments. Big tech saw an opportunity to redefine interaction and create new economies. Meta even changed Facebook’s name, Microsoft bet on collaborative environments, and Epic Games and Nvidia talked about building shared universes.

As analyzed in our partner publication Emprender y Más article “The Metaverse: The Next Digital Frontier,” the promise of a new economic and social space seemed unstoppable during the pandemic. Investments multiplied, and brands began opening their own virtual stores and offices. However, reality was very different. Experiences were confusing, hardware was expensive, and interoperability was nonexistent.

An Anadolu Agency report estimates that global interest in the metaverse fell by more than 60% between 2022 and 2024, with a parallel drop in Google searches and media coverage. Emprender y Más also highlighted how major corporations redirected their tech budgets toward AI after realizing the limitations of these virtual worlds. The promise of a new 3D internet faded before it materialized.

The collapse of the great digital experiment

The metaverse collapsed due to a combination of factors. First, the lack of practical utility: few users found reasons to spend time in these environments beyond initial curiosity. Second, the technological entry barrier: virtual reality headsets remained expensive and uncomfortable. Third, the absence of interoperability, which prevented platforms from connecting.

Financial reports from 2024 show that Meta drastically cut its VR spending after multimillion-dollar losses. Bloomberg described this period as “the end of uncontrolled metaverse spending,” noting that VR divisions barely provided economic return.

At the same time, blockchain-based metaverses like Decentraland or The Sandbox suffered a similar collapse. Speculation on digital land fell when cryptocurrencies lost value, and the number of active users dropped to minimum levels. Glassnode data shows that virtual asset trading activity fell by over 80% since 2022.

According to Emprender y Más’s analysis of barriers in implementing AI projects in companies, tech investment has shifted toward productivity tools, leaving behind virtual reality platforms and experimental environments.

Roblox, the unexpected survivor

While the rest of the sector retracted, Roblox maintained an upward trajectory. Its success lies in being born without selling futuristic promises: it offers a social environment where users create, share, and monetize their own games. It is, in practice, a functional metaverse, but without pretensions.

According to Backlinko data, the platform reached 79.5 million daily active users in Q2 2025, with over 23 million players making monthly purchases. These figures place it among the few expanding digital communities after the end of the hype.

Its success is explained by three main factors:

• Accessibility: works on mobile, PC, or consoles without additional hardware.
• Solid internal economy: based on the Robux currency and creator compensation.
• Young, creative community: continuously generating content and keeping the ecosystem alive.

Rather than relying on promises about the future of work or education, Roblox has consolidated a persistent entertainment model. In a way, it represents the metaverse that actually worked: one built from the ground up, not from Silicon Valley PowerPoints.

What remains of the metaverse

Beyond Roblox, some fragments of the original concept survive. Mixed reality remains the focus for companies like Apple, with its Vision Pro, or Meta, which continues developing Quest headsets for hybrid experiences.

In business, so-called industrial metaverses, based on simulations and digital twins, have found real applications in sectors like energy or advanced manufacturing, as explained in “Digital Twins: Definition, Uses, and Future.”

The term “metaverse” has been replaced by subtler expressions: extended reality, immersive spaces, or persistent digital ecosystems. The word fell out of favor, but many of its ideas are still in development, albeit with less ambition and more pragmatism.

According to a recent article on the state of artificial intelligence, this convergence between AI and virtual environments is transforming how digital processes are conceived on a global scale.

AI as a possible resurrection

The big question is whether advances in AI can revive the metaverse. The answer is ambivalent. AI allows procedural world generation, populates them with autonomous avatars, and provides personalized experiences. This reduces production costs and increases interaction.

As addressed in “AI and the Future of the Metaverse: Rebirth or Reinvention?”, AI development opens a new stage in which digital worlds could be reborn under a more practical and personalized logic.

Entertainment platforms are already experimenting with generative AI-powered NPCs capable of maintaining coherent conversations or reacting naturally to players. Recommendation algorithms are also being applied to personalize the experience within 3D environments, boosting user retention.

However, structural challenges remain: hardware is still expensive, interoperability standards are absent, and audiences are visibly fatigued by grand futuristic narratives. AI can enhance the experience but cannot eliminate the gap between promise and reality.

From hype to mutation

The metaverse is not dead; it has just changed form. Its grandiose version, which promised a parallel digital world, has disappeared. But the idea of persistent, social, interactive virtual spaces survives on more realistic platforms, supported by active communities and mature technology.

Roblox embodies this transition: a project without rhetoric or revolution, but with tangible results. Its success shows that the digital future does not need to proclaim itself—it only needs to work and provide real value. And perhaps that is the metaverse’s most enduring lesson: true innovation is not in the promised universes, but in those people actually use.